California needs to ensure equitable access to high-quality early care and education

As the mayors of Oakland and Stockton, diverse cities with a combined population of over 730,000 people, we care deeply about equity, and ensuring that every child has the opportunity to grow up ready for college and career success.

In Oakland, 2,200 babies are born to low-income parents every year, and 66 percent of those students enter kindergarten without the basic skills needed to succeed. In Stockton, nearly 85 percent of public school students face challenges related to growing up in poverty, immigration threats, or housing instability, and fewer than one in three students in third grade are reading at grade level.

In both of our cities, Black and Latinx kids are faced with the largest achievement gaps. While these numbers paint a stark picture, we know these challenges can be overcome. Our children can and will have the opportunity to thrive, if we start with the early years.

The first few years of a child’s life are critical to her future, and a time of rapid brain development. Babies start learning from the minute they are born, and their environment, experiences and daily interactions affect their growth and development.

We know that quality early learning programs, including child care and preschool, serve as the foundation for positive outcomes in a child’s life and can prevent the achievement gap before it starts. This is especially critical for kids of color, kids living in low-income communities and dual language learners – in other words, the majority of our children in Oakland and Stockton, and in the state as a whole.

Research also shows that investing in quality early care and education benefits not only children and their families, but our communities and the economy – for every dollar invested in high-quality early childhood education, we get up to $7.30 in economic returns over the long-term.

So why aren’t we doing more? In our cities, we are.

In 2016, the Oakland Mayor’s Office and the Oakland Unified School District launched Oakland Promise, with the goal of dramatically increasing the number of Oakland high school students who complete college. And because we understand the critical importance of the early years, Oakland Promise includes Brilliant Baby, an early childhood program for low-income families, and Kindergarten to College, a program designed to create a college-going culture at every elementary school in Oakland.

And last year, the Stockton Mayor’s Office launched Stockton Scholars, an initiative focused on increasing the number of Stockton students who enter and complete college and Stockton Service Corps, which mobilizes over 100 AmeriCorps fellows across six program partners to promote literacy, math proficiency, socio-emotional wellness, and postsecondary resiliency. Lastly, we are excited to be launching a Children’s Savings Account program in 2020 as the initial point of intervention in our cradle-to-career pipeline.

We cannot wait until children reach high school in order to prepare them for college and career success – we have to begin as early as possible.

We need leadership at the state level to make large-scale changes so that all California kids are on an even playing field when it comes to their futures. Gov. Newsom has been an amazing ally on children’s issues since he took office. We call on him to build on the foundation he laid with last year’s investment in early education with an even stronger push for higher-quality, greater access, improved facilities, better data collection and a culturally-competent, justly-paid workforce. We are excited to partner with the governor to make his vision – of a California for all – a reality.

This story was originally published February 19, 2020 at 9:52 AM.